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Online CPD

Raising Grades at GCSE Citizenship Studies

This CPD session will provide teachers an opportunity to work with our experienced ACT Teaching Ambassadors.

29th Nov 2023 5:00pm

School & College: Free • Organisation: £25 • Individual: £25 • E-member: £50

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About this event

All teachers strive to ensure their students achieve the best results possible in their GCSE Citizenship examinations. This CPD session will provide teachers an opportunity to work with our experienced ACT Teaching Ambassadors, who will be on hand to offer their experience and guidance for each of the examination board specifications (OCR, Edexcel and AQA).

In this 90 min workshop there will be a chance to explore the examiners report and discuss the implications for each examination board. The session will advise on examination techniques and how to embed this into your pedagogy across the school year to ensure that students are confident by the time they sit their exams.

There will also be a discussion around effective learning and revision techniques, such as retrieval practice, and going beyond just factual recall to really challenge students’ understanding. Additionally, we will examine how as teachers we can best plan to ensure our curriculums allow for the best progression for our GCSE students. 

Please note this workshop will not focus on the Citizenship investigation element of  GCSE Citizenship Studies as this will be covered in full by a separate CPD later in the year.

Who is it for?

This workshop will benefit those teaching GCSE Citizenship Studies.

Why attend?

By the end of this workshop you will: 

  • Develop your understanding of exam technique
  • Have a greater understanding of the examiners report from your examination board
  • Work with a community of teachers who share your experiences

Additional information

This workshop will support the CCF and ECF through discussion and analysis with expert colleagues in the following areas:

  • Reducing learning distractions (e.g. keeping the complexity of a task to a minimum, so attention is focused on content).
  • Breaking complex material into smaller steps (e.g. using partially completed examples to focus pupils).
  • Identifying possible misconceptions and planning how to prevent these forming.
  • Linking what pupils already know to what is being taught (e.g. explaining how new content builds on what is already known).
  • Designing practice, generation and retrieval tasks that provide enough support for pupils to experience a high success rate when attempting challenging work.
  • Balancing exposition, repetition, practice and retrieval of critical knowledge and skills.
  • Providing opportunities for all pupils to learn and master essential concepts, knowledge, skills and principles of the subject.
  • Planning activities around what you want pupils to think hard about.
  • Including a range of types of questions in class discussions to extend and challenge pupils (e.g. by modelling new vocabulary or asking pupils to justify answers).

CPD strand – GCSE Network

Building on our current strong network of GCSE teachers, we have developed a bespoke strand for members who teach GCSE Citizenship Studies. The focus of sessions will include improving outcomes for the Citizenship Investigation (active citizenship), examination technique, and opportunities for teachers to support each other with moderation of assessments.

Event team

Meet the team who will be running this event

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Zoe Baker

Head of Education and Professional Development

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Steven Humphrys

ACT Ambassador- North West

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Sera Shortland

ACT Ambassador- East Midlands

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Bryden Joy

ACT Ambassador- South East

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Daryl Henson

ACT Ambassador- North East

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Terri Barry

ACT Ambassador

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Kelly Allchin

Assistant Principal, Leeds City Academy

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Zoe Baker

Head of Education and Professional Development

Zoe leads on the development and delivery of professional learning, working with a range of agencies and ACT regional Teaching Ambassadors. She ensures that our teachers have a wealth of material to draw on to support their roles in school. Zoe’s qualifications include a History and Social Science BA hons, PGCE, and Fellowship of Holocaust Education. She also works on the ITT programme at Canterbury Christ Church University, and she has been a teacher in Kent for over 20 years, as well as an ACT teaching advisor. Zoe is also a freelance educator at the Holocaust Educational Trust, working on the Lessons From Auschwitz Project and accompanying survivors into schools to deliver their testimony.

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Steven Humphrys

ACT Ambassador- North West

Steven is Head of Citizenship and PSHE at Altrincham Grammar School for Girls, a large state 11-18 grammar school in Trafford, Manchester. He teaches Citizenship as a discreet subject across Key Stage 3 and 4 and has a large option GCSE group, following the Edexcel specification. He has a Religious Studies and Sociology degree, and is particularly interested in Human Rights, Equality and the role of the media in contemporary society.

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Sera Shortland

ACT Ambassador- East Midlands

Sera is Head of Citizenship at New College Leicester. Since completing a Citizenship PGCE at Leicester University, she runs a Leicester political speaking competition and is passionate about social justice issues. Sera also greatly enjoys teaching GCSE Citizenship Studies, especially the legal side of citizenship as she taught GCSE law for several years. Sera has been a member of ACT Council since March 2018.

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Bryden Joy

ACT Ambassador- South East

Bryden is the Lead Practitioner for Citizenship and PSHE at the Ormiston Academies Trust. He grew up in Melbourne, Australia, and has lived in England for over ten years. Bryden’s aim is to ensure that all pupils are aware of their rights, and that they have the knowledge and skills to be able to make informed decisions in their daily lives.

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Daryl Henson

ACT Ambassador- North East

Daryl Henson has been in education since 2014. Having started his training teaching A-Level/Foundation degree level Law, he transitioned into secondary education teaching English. Having obtained a Masters Degree in Law, he followed his passion and in 2018 was able to introduce Citizenship Studies as an optional GCSE subject at his current school, Wyvern College. Teaching dual subjects certainly has its positives when it comes to Citizenship education, as we can explore cross curricular issues that arise. He was recently appointed as the North East Regional Ambassador for the Association of Citizenship Teachers, and very much welcomes the chance to develop whilst working with ACT.

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Terri Barry

ACT Ambassador

Terri works at the Anderson High School in Shetland teaching Religious, Moral and Philosophical Studies within their Social Subjects department. Prior to this she worked as subject lead of Citizenship, RE and PSHE in the South East. She delivered GCSE Citizenship (AQA) as a compulsory subject for over 10 years and spent time developing a curriculum which enabled students to study Religious Studies alongside this. Terri is passionate about the importance of worldviews and ensuring students have a strong understanding of the communities in which they live. She continues to develop ways in which worldviews, both secular and religious, can be taught in unison. Terri is also a member of the ACT Council.

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Kelly Allchin

Assistant Principal, Leeds City Academy

Kelly Allchin is an experienced Citizenship teacher and Assistant Principal at Leeds City Academy with over 10 years’ experience. She holds school responsibility for personal development and line management for humanities.

FAQs

These are some of the questions we are most often asked about our training sessions. If you have other questions, please don’t hesitate to get in touch and we will be happy to help.

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